A plain-vanilla company? Well, in a way.
“We make multiple vanillas—double strength, pure, organic,” says Mark Jacobs, who runs Winona-based J. R. Watkins, Inc., for his father, famed Minneapolis entrepreneur Irwin Jacobs. “Vanilla is about 30 percent of the company’s revenue.” But the company’s history, turnaround, and potential for growth, like its CEO, are anything but vanilla.
Chief executive since 1998, Mark Jacobs has grown revenues by nearly 90 percent over the past five years. He expects them to more than double over the next five years, to $250 million.
Not coincidentally, Jacobs and Watkins have initiated a multi-year strategy of putting the firm’s long list of products through a tedious reformulation process to achieve “all-natural” certification from the Natural Products Association, in Washington, D.C. Watkins also has introduced dozens of new products, such as aloe and green-tea shampoo and body wash, fragrance-free laundry detergent, citrus bathroom cleaners, and lemon all-purpose wipes—while dropping numerous low-demand items.
And there’s a third factor behind Watkins’ renaissance: expanding sales channels. Though the “Watkins man” (and, more and more, “Watkins woman”) still sells directly to customers, Watkins now also markets many of its products through some of the nation’s largest retailers, including Target, Wal-Mart, and Whole Foods.
This is helping the company reach a significantly larger number of customers—building upon an aging, mostly rural foundation to include younger consumers and those in cities and suburbs who are increasingly demanding green products.
Winona Calls
The company’s brand is strong in many parts of the United States, but not so much in many others. Founded in 1868 by Joseph Ray Watkins in Plainview, a southern Minnesota town about 20 miles northeast of Rochester, the company’s first product was a liniment to console aching muscles. Made with camphor and capsaicin (the chemical that makes chili peppers “hot”), the liniment remains one of the company’s biggest sellers. Its label now features an endorsement by Major League Baseball pitcher Johan Santana, a former Minnesota Twin.
